ENTERING A NEW SEA

16 September 2023

I have sailed the seven seas.  But, never before have I sailed on the Arafura Sea or crossed the Gulf of Carpentaria.  Now I have.  My stop in Seisia was excellent apart from a couple of days when the wind blew too hard for me to get ashore in the little rubber duck dinghy, at least not without a soaking or risk of being blown to Timbuktu.

The trade winds that were so effective on the east coast ignored the narrow strip of land separating Seisia from the east and blew with some energy into the anchorage.  This wind from the land also picked up the smoke and ash from numerous fires the locals start to burn bush.  Soon Truce was covered in a layer of ash and burnt vegetation which mixed nicely with the sand and dust carried by the wind, a bit of a mess. 

Ashore I visited the small supermarket for some fresh supplies.  The store was surprisingly well stocked with eye watering prices, reflecting the remoteness of this area and the logistical challenges of getting supplies delivered.  I also visited an art shop where I sat and enjoyed a coffee.  The owner of the art shop, a lady originally from Brazil called Simone, offered to give me a lift into Bamaga later in the afternoon to buy some beer. 

Later in the afternoon I set off with Simone in her car to Banmaga where I purchased some beer to replenish my dwindling stock.  (Its warmer now and the beer evaporates faster). Then Simone generously gave me a tour of the local area.  We drove down to the Jardine River, Umagico, Alau Beach and other scenic spots, very enjoyable.

The next day I went ashore again for a walk around.  There are numerous camp grounds around where the adventurous Australians in their big 4WD vehicles and trailers of all sizes. They pitch their camp chairs in a line and drink beer.  They are a sort of land bound cruising sailor.  Some of the vehicles and trailers look extremely expensive.  The fuel used to get these big rigs up towards Cape York will be giving some people a rather large carbon footprint.  Talking about carbon footprint I took my five-liter petrol can ashore to top up with petrol for my outboard motor at the filling station called a servo.

As the forecast was for more wind in the coming days I decided to depart from Seisia rather than be boatbound at the anchorage.  I could use the wind to take me west towards Gove, my next stop.  The departure from Seisia had to be planned to catch the rising tide over the shallows in the Endeavour Strait.  Fortunately, a departure at the civilised time of six thirty in the morning would bring us to Endeavour strait at the right time to take the rising tide through.     

We departed on time and once clear of the buoyed channel had a lovely wind pushing us fast in the right direction.  Just after eleven in the morning we were clear of Endeavour Strait and the echo sounder started reading in double digits again, that was a relief.  From now on it’s a straight sail across to Gove without any reefs, rocks or shoreline to dodge.  I recalculated the ETA at Gove and found we could make a daylight arrival in two days if we averaged six and a half knots.  This is quite a high average and I decided to take it easy and slow down to make a morning arrival on the third day.  I was set on a daylight arrival at Gove as the anchorage is reported to have numerous mooring buoys and unlit vessels hanging around.

With such a good wind, at time gusting to almost thirty knots we made good time, in fact we were going too fast and I had to reduce sail until we had three reefs in the main, half a yankee and a reefed staysail.  Later on the first night the wind became stronger and I struck the mainsail to ease the stress on the boat, we didn’t lose any speed.

The second day the wind eased and we had mostly around twenty knots with occasional gusts.  The seas were horrid.  Short seas, only about two meters high but with such a short period and on the quarter, Truce rolled heavily.  Most uncomfortable, the short seas most likely caused by the shallow waters and currents.  Lovely sailing but the short waves continued and now they had breaking crests.  There seemed to be so much energy in the waves, disproportionate to the wind strength.  One wave actually broke over the stern which is most unusual.

On the third day at daybreak we could see land as we ghosted on a dying breeze past Bremer Island towards Gove.  Just after nine in the morning we anchored off the Gove yacht club in calm waters.  I will stay here awhile and recoup.